Blue Collar Business Podcast
Welcome to the Blue Collar Business Podcast with Sy Kirby. Dive deep into the world of hands-on entrepreneurship and the gritty side of making things happen. Join us for actionable tips on scaling your blue-collar business, managing teams, and staying ahead in an ever-evolving market. We'll also discuss the latest industry trends and innovations that could impact your bottom line. If you're passionate about the blue-collar world and eager to learn from those who've thrived in it, this podcast is a must-listen. Stay tuned for engaging conversations and real-world advice that can take your blue-collar business to new heights.
Blue Collar Business Podcast
Ep. 32 - Dirt to Dollars: Excavating Success with Clay Hudspeth
Clay Hudspeth of HudX Excavation takes us on a journey through his entrepreneurial evolution, sharing the wisdom gained from over 25 years in the blue-collar world. After building a successful landscaping business with multiple crews, Clay completely restructured his approach with his excavation company, focusing on quality over quantity and implementing a strategic business model designed with an exit strategy in mind.
Clay's refreshingly honest perspective cuts through typical business advice, revealing how keeping overhead manageable and maintaining a small, focused team allows his company to deliver exceptional service at competitive prices. "There are a lot of companies out there that have grown to a point where their overhead can equal almost what the job is going to cost very quickly," he explains, highlighting the sweet spot his company occupies between small operations and large contractors.
The conversation delves deep into the challenges of customer relationship management, with Clay offering remarkable insights on navigating the complex dynamics between contractors and homeowners. His approach to transparent communication, honest pricing discussions, and genuine follow-through has built HudX's stellar reputation. "Just asking them what they like and repeating it later makes them know you were listening," Clay shares, emphasizing how these seemingly simple practices put his company ahead of competitors.
Perhaps most valuable is Clay's perspective on perseverance through business challenges. "In the 25, 30 years I've been doing this, the things I can remember having major worries about are just water under the bridge now," he reflects, encouraging listeners to maintain their integrity through difficult situations. His experience shows that properly handled problems often transform challenging customers into your strongest advocates.
Ready to transform your blue-collar business approach? Listen now to gain actionable strategies from someone who's navigated decades of industry evolution and learned what truly matters for sustainable success.
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Hey guys, welcome to the Blue Collar Business Podcast, where we discuss the realest, rawest, most relevant stories and strategies behind building every corner of a blue collar business. I'm your host, cy Kirby, and I want to help you in what it took me trial and error and a whole lot of money to learn the information that no one in this industry is willing to share. Whether you're under that shade tree or have your hard hat on, let's expand your toolbox. Welcome back to the Blue Collar Business Podcast, sponsored by podcastvideoscom, and I am bringing you a live action guest here from the beautiful newscast room is what they call this on our beautiful new 4K cameras. Shout out to those guys, go check them out at podcastvideoscom. That's where we've been hosting the show for oh, I think we're coming up on right at one year anniversary, so be looking out for that.
Speaker 1:I have a very experienced, educated guest today that has some mindset. We've been sitting here we got caught up, gavin, we were supposed to have a 10 minute intro and we've been sitting here talking for 30 minutes on insights and he's taught me a few perspective switches. So today I'm bringing you guys Clay Hudspeth with HUD-X Excavation. We're going to be talking about his view from 20 years. This guy was an entrepreneur in the 90s. I was born in the 90s, just showing my age just a little bit, but how we manage that and basically managing labor nowadays and how he's combating that. And furthermore, mr Clay, thank you so much for joining me. Seriously, very welcome, mr Clay.
Speaker 1:The Blue Collar Business Podcast is literally designed for gentlemen like you that have been behind the scenes working um in these industry types for 20, 25 years. And it's just like you said earlier it was. It's taken me 20 years to figure out how to do this and I know, just like we were talking on uh, myself like I, I wish I could turn back the dial five years and tell myself hey, stupid, don't do this. And this is exactly why we designed the show and I couldn't be any more excited. If you wouldn't mind, brother, just give us a little bit of insight on the background. I know you already shared with me earlier, but share for the audience today and I'm really intrigued.
Speaker 2:But we've been doing excavation and high-end landscaping for the last five years under the business of HUD-X. As you said before that. I did landscaping for 20 years in this area for myself and decided to kind of switch things over, try to use a little more equipment, thought it would make things a little easier on um. We mostly do um small excavation um new houses, dig out for driveways, footers, install drainage drains around the house, irrigation systems will design and install landscaping as well. So pretty much anything outside that needs to be dug we can pretty much help you out.
Speaker 1:So essentially you guys are, minus the irrigation and the landscape design part of things. You guys are handling what we would all be after, which is the the home builder of you know three or four homes. Hey, I've got a couple of driveways. I'm building these three or four homes. I got the sidewalk rough grade in the yard. Um, that's what every mini x and skids to your guy.
Speaker 1:I was begging for those guys and especially if they'd pay within 30 days. You know I was hammering those guys and but coming from the landscape side of things, um, you said there you had quite a few crews that you had worked up to and um, did you just self-taught irrigation? Did you in the landscape side of things? Was it more of a um property maintenance side of things, or was it a um just hard installs? I mean, I didn't know anything about excavation when I got in it, other than my grandfather was um, basically a hard-nosed union guy and I wanted everything to do with and I thought machines were cool. You know what I mean. So when did that kind of all come together for you?
Speaker 2:um, I've always worked outside from when I was little, all the way through, went to college for um, um, design architecture, uh, landscape architecture. Then we were able to just transition into a lot more for contractors, in the sense that beforehand we were working mostly residential, straight to homestead, mostly for the homeowner, which has its merits they're not always looking for the quickest and the cheapest Right, whereas your contractors really wanting not necessarily the cheapest, but they don't want a lot of profit, that you know, leaving their product. So, um, it can kind of balance depending on who you really like to, uh, how you like to get paid and who you like to to work for.
Speaker 1:So, um, the owner negotiated from. I mean, that's a dream for any contractor. To begin with, yeah, yeah, working directly with the homeowner or, in the commercial side, directly with the developer or the ownership team, that's exactly what you want to do. But but you're right, it doesn't always have. It has its merits, but it definitely has its cons.
Speaker 1:Things change rapidly and I could only imagine working on landscape installs. It's uh, hey, I, I thought we talked about putting this bush there kind of thing and then just repetitively, over, over and over again Um, hey, we're done with the install. Well, and I could only imagine. I, I can't say I hate it. I really didn't love working with homeowners from the excavation side of things, which wasn't doing any type of landscaping, it was just a rough grade, final grade. They'll come in sod behind me, other than from the simple fact, like you're saying, they have a whole vision, they want to do this in their backyard and we get to kind of help with that project. From that standpoint, um, working with the homeowner was was great, but nine chances out of ten it's coming through.
Speaker 2:A contractor like you're talking about, right, right, so which the the contractors we work for at the moment, I think uh, like the freedom of being able to hand off the house unfinished to another contractor, and it says that it allows them to work on a lot of the small details on the interior of the house without having to worry about anything on the outside getting done, put a lot of that responsibility off on us versus being kind of a part of it, which I've really enjoyed. So the contractors we work for kind of remove themselves once we get to that landscaping aspect and then we just work directly with the home, and that's so weird. Yeah, that is something. So we work for the contractor and then we work for the homeowner and then we're kind of having to you having to work alongside the contractor at the end of the project, and so that is so weird because a lot of times, yeah, honestly, again not having the landscaper side of it.
Speaker 1:For some reason and I don't know if it's just this area specifically, but I've worked for a lot of builders they always exclude landscaping. They always exclude landscaping and normally the guy that's coming in to do the finish grade that's the only experience I have they want to keep it as cheap as possible. They don't bring no dirt in. You know from that new house mentality, the contractor but yeah, so you kind of get sandwiched there. You got to deal with both of them.
Speaker 2:I do, which, uh, the contractors we have, um, you know, they vet us just as much as we vet them. Um, you know, if you know if we weren't easy to work with, they wouldn't be with us, and if they weren't easy to work with they wouldn't be with us, and if they weren't easy to work with I wouldn't be working with them as well. You know, I've worked with some contractors in the past, which has taken me, you know, two to three months to get paid. These guys are really quick at getting money moved around, not necessarily having to make a dime off of everything that we do Right, which really then allows me to work directly with the homeowner and finances as well. So then, things move really quick on that side as well.
Speaker 1:A lot of flexibility too.
Speaker 2:That far. As far as finances, the way we've kind of got it worked Cash flows, everything as you know it is it's hard. You can't keep employees if you can't keep them paid. That's right, and you know you can't pay them well enough for them to want to show up. Um, you can't get the work done and you're not going to get the good word and so, um. So it's a balancing act all the way across the board. You were before we?
Speaker 1:um, just just trying to follow the timeline here. Um, you went through kind of the 08 era there but you were dealing with a lot of commercial and residential. You had, I mean, built this landscape company to something and here you are navigating through all of that. Um, you ran up to four or five crews. You had said at one point I'm like that is a four or five crews at anything outside planning, managing, coordinating all of that is just it's really difficult to do, um, but then you kind of were were sharing there for just a few minutes that you wanted. You didn't have as much of a plan in mind of where that landscape company was going compared to what you're doing in the model structure of business now.
Speaker 1:And I can't tell you how many guys that are probably listening, and myself included that start this venture with no real end game in plant or five-year goal to get to an end game. You know, and I encourage what Mr Clay I hope it will share a little bit more insight with us on is just how he was dealing with a 20-year landscape, didn't share it with me, there wasn't quite an exit strategy, but now he has built a what I'm very excited to share with you excavation guys and how he is structured and I know we've got some audience members that hopefully are structured the same but, um, the insight he's going to share is complete opposite from where I'm at having to have 20 employees to get done, multiple crews and the headaches we shared. But if you wouldn't mind sharing a little bit of that and navigating from going from the landscape and now you guys are rocking and rolling with HunX here and how you guys kind of form that out.
Speaker 2:Like you said I really had. When I started originally working for myself, it was because I liked the freedoms that it does provide. Yes, sir, you know you go from working 40 hours a week to working 90 hours a week.
Speaker 2:You don't really stop working. You know I have clients text me. You know Sunday night at 930 in the evening, or you know 5 o'clock in the morning on a Tuesday, that's right, it never stops. But the freedoms that it does create.
Speaker 2:I did like Right. I liked working for myself business that would accomplish the goal of being able to sell or hand off to someone else, that there was still a benefit from it when I get out of it. Yes, sir. Instead I worked until a point where I felt like I didn't want to work quite that hard doing landscape any longer and I got out and started progressing towards a couple of other ideas and realized pretty quickly that if I'd set things up a lot differently throughout that 20-year venture, that I could have sold that business, that I could have merged it into someone else and been able to have a return off of all of the efforts that I'd done, the time invested. And it just wasn't there because I didn't have that planned, yep. Whereas now we're really trying to have a goal where we progress forward in a direction that will create a business that can hopefully be sold to someone that would benefit someone else's business, but yet when we're ready to get out, we still get the return from the rest of that company.
Speaker 1:And I think you hit the nail on the head, and there's probably so many guys. I sit on the show and on YouTube all the time Plan, plan, strategize, hey, forecast budget, and I wasn't doing a lot of that for a lot of years. I mean, it's not just up until the last 18 months where I've really had to re-gear everything that I was doing as an owner. I mean, I was still dealing with posture syndrome of, hey, you own this thing, like you've created it, like these people are waiting on you to lead and set these things up. But it took me so much longer than I ever thought it would and I had a beautiful wife sitting there reminding me, hey, can we slow down just a little bit on all this growth? And hey, why don't we set up some systems and procedures?
Speaker 1:And you know some of the smaller, finite things that are needed to do what we were doing. But so I think it's so cool because it's an interesting model, that I don't think many excavation guys, a lot of landscapers, um, doing already predominant landscaping, trying to make the shift over into hardscaping I see that more common. But you guys have more set out to be excavation with the landscape. So it's kind of backwards from what you hear, a lot of this generalistic from what I hear, right, right. So, um, hardscaping, irrigation, irrigation, the whole nine.
Speaker 2:I mean there's obviously a little bit of a market for that, I would assume, definitely, definitely. There are a lot of companies out there right now that provide services that have grown to a point where they're overhead can equal almost what the job is going to cost Very quickly. So having a smaller company that can still provide some of these mid-sized services that don't have to triple or quadruple the amounts just to be able to keep the business running, there's definitely a lot of need for that. I think in this area 100% You've got plenty of guys that mow and mulch and do a little bit of maintenance. It's not really that installation but when you get to that other end you have mostly just large companies and that middle area still kind of, I think, has a lot of potential 100%.
Speaker 1:This area is so unique and there's not many areas in the country like the one we are so blessed to to live in. But, um, the landscape side of things I know I keep keep running back to, but you had said something in our intro call. And when you keep things low overhead, um, it don't have to carry a bunch of guys. You've got three key players in your, your all's operation and you being one of them, um, when you guys do a job, the level of service that you're getting, when you do a job with y'all. You said, hey, we don't really do irrigation maintenance, but when we install an entire uh, some of I think they're called units, right, or zones, as I think that's right so an entire zoned unit, we want to make sure when we come back in the wintertime I'm going to come back to you and go, hey, let me tear down this entire setup so we know it's going to fire back up in spring, that's insane just having that.
Speaker 2:That correct maintenance.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is, it's a level of service, though I think that a lot of bigger contractors tend to. I can't really say that. There's a lot of them that just don't care, but I think there's a lot of contractors that get caught up in the trying to just keep the monster afloat and they lose the little things of hey, something like that hey, we installed your backflow and everything and we want to come back in six months and make sure it works. That's insane. Most guys are given the taillight warranty and as soon as you know they hit the next four way, you can't see them taillights. They don't want you calling them again and and I. And it goes to exactly what the model that you guys are trying to do.
Speaker 1:And um, managing labor nowadays is just not even. It's not even fun. No matter, I'm super blessed to have the team that I have. I have gone through a lot of individuals that didn't align with me, didn't align with the company, didn't align with our values, but there is a huge gap in the labor force that we're trying to combat.
Speaker 1:I had, not too long ago, springdale School District does a CDL program. They do heavy excavation at the high school level. So I'm really trying to get in with that, but trying to shine light on that and close that gap, because there's not enough people out here willing to take the time, jump on a podcast and go, hey, we've got a freaking serious issue. You're already combating the issue by not having to deal with as much labor when you've probably dealt with 20, 25 guys building the landscape. And it's just. It's really unique to see that, hey, you can perform these midsize level contracts or even larger contracts with well-planned, executed, managed labor and the overhead's. Another big thing is keeping that overhead low. Guys. I can't tell you from an excavation standpoint. I have done the me and three guy thing. I've done the me and six guy thing. I've done the managers and all the man. The profitable sweet spot is one to you and five guys and making sure you do a dang good job that the next person tells you about them. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:It. It definitely is going to, uh, I think, allow you to sit in an area of a little more profit with keeping your overhead down. Uh, the the way work happens, it's kind of a ebb and flow and beast or famine, and you know, being able to balance things in that worst time is really where you find your weakness. You know, if you can't make it through, you know that time where things are drying up or things are too wet, or, you know, due to the fact that you just have so many employees, you know, yeah, it starts affecting all of your employees, not just the ones that you may not. You question whether you're going to keep or not. Good point, you know, then you're not paying the ones that you are wanting to keep and it'll just take a long way across.
Speaker 1:It's the profitability killer, is the complacency just trying to feed the monster. And I've had a little bit of experience with that myself, sir Not planning, not strategizing, not budgeting, not forecasting, not having an understanding of any of that, and I still have none of it perfected. I'm learning every day, but I've finally started taking the time and reaching out and you've been kind of hitting around about it, but you don't know what you don't know. Kind of hidden around about it, but you don't know what you don't know. And I didn't know a lot of these things that, um, as I was growing that I wish I did, there was people throwing things at me, trying to warn me, ie my wife and several other people that love me.
Speaker 1:But now I have had to go to people and hey, fractional CFO, you really have an understanding of what needs to happen here. I don't. Can you take the time? Sure, and she's passionate about it. I don't know what I'm doing. Neither you know to that level, and my wife has done such a great job, and the ladies in the office, but you just don't know what you don't know. And it's to that experience of already managing labor and dealing with people and homeowners and contractors for 20 plus years to walk into what you guys are doing now puts a different view on it. You know what I mean. And to know that, walking in where you can go, profitability standpoint, if we can keep it not necessarily trying to keep it that, but in this realm right here, guys, I think we can keep it, not necessarily trying to keep it that, but in this realm right here guys, I think we can do this. And you guys are five years in doing this model, right, right, well done, sir that's uh it, like you said we had.
Speaker 2:I had a lot of experience getting up to this point of running people going through um, good times and hard times, and so, exactly like you said, if you don't know what you don't know, you try to plan for the future. Without seeing those ups and downs, it's pretty impossible to plan for all of them. So it's pretty impossible to plan for all of them. Knowing how your employees are going to affect the amount of work and how that affects the amount of money coming in, and just being able to balance all of those things, you feel more like you're in a circus juggling a long time Boy do I Real quick here?
Speaker 1:I've got to give a shout-out to our guys over at Blue Collar Performance Marketing Ike and his team. They have been helping the PsyCon team and been helping behind the scenes here with the Blue Collar Business Podcast and helping push it out. Blue Collar Business podcast and helping push it out. They are an incredible team. From a value standpoint of I'm an excavation guy and I'm trying to tiptoe into the marketing world. Obviously we're pushing pretty hard, but I needed somebody to guide me. I don't know what I'm doing with the marketing side of things. I'm just creating content. There was no strategy behind it. Marketing side of things I'm just creating content. There was no strategy behind it and Ike and his team have done a great job, pointing me in the right direction and making sure I'm spending my dollars wisely on sponsored ads, targeted ads. So shout out to those guys and thank you so much for your avid sponsorship here on the Blue Collar Business Podcast.
Speaker 1:I've got something else that I think you can share major insight on. It's developing that reputation of good quality work is one thing, but just being personable with people and being good to people Talk a little bit about that. I know you've probably had your fair share of insight of doing the little things and making sure you're leaving a quality product and building that personal relationship with you've navigated homeowners and contractors at the same time. There's probably no better person to speak on. This is making navigating those relationships to ensure that money's coming in the door. You know right? Um sorry if I just threw one at you um?
Speaker 2:what was the question?
Speaker 1:basically, um help us, from 25 years of experience of entrepreneurship, navigating those personal relationships with customers, homeowners, your employees and making sure you're delivering a through that, delivering a quality product every time with your team. That affects the reputation. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Yep, I think a lot of it starts with just your respect on the phone when you talk to someone, speaking to them as if they deserve some respect, not being short with them, not letting the rest of your day that's already happened come through the phone on them, um, and then doing what you say. If you say you're gonna be there at nine, be there by nine, not by nine or ten. Now, if you're gonna be there by nine, ten, call them and tell them you're gonna be late. All right, that communication goes miles, goes a long, long ways, say, people just want to feel like they know what's going on, and the more you can communicate that with people, the better. Um, then, uh, just trying to uh listen to what they say.
Speaker 2:I've had a lot of clients, especially on the landscaping side, that say that, uh, they've had people come in, talk to them, do a design for them, and it comes back and it's totally opposite of what they're wanting, as if they didn't even listen to the ideas. Right, they had for their own, you know, and so their own space. Just asking them a lot of what they like. You know most people really don't have too many exact things, but they kind of know generalizations, preferences, right, I like these things tall, I like this to be short, I like lots of flowers, I like you know just small things that you can repeat later, makes them know that you were listening to what they were talking about. Those, just those couple of things will already put you ahead of almost all of the other contractors and subcontractors that they're dealing with.
Speaker 1:It's the little things like that that you may not think are super game changers, but those four simple things. Absolutely every single time it's finding something within your first conversation. And, if you can add from my experience, if you can add a personal touch, if you can remember, hey, I'm actually running to Jimmy's ballgame and the next time you're talking, you're talking about hey, how did jimmy's ball game go the other day? Right, and they're like, well, well, it was good and it's a totally different call or transaction because you're trying to. At the end of the day, they've got to spend money with you and I think the communication, um, the one thing I would add to that from my side is I wish I would have been a little bit more transparent with homeowners and early on in the contractor world, because I always thought that if they knew that I was making a dollar or I was making 10%, oh God, I can't have that. I always tried to hide it and it just automatically drives confusion and non-clarity and distrust. And would you agree with that? No, I totally agree.
Speaker 2:A hint of dishonesty, even if you're not being Yep. Just you know why would you be changing the numbers or adding something, like you're sliding it in later, or just a lot of people just want to be clear. So the numbers I've found most of the time people don't have a problem with discussing real numbers. If they do, then we talk about phases Phase one, phase two it's very rarely, is it? Wow, this is too expensive. I know what you guys doing the work really say. I like you guys. You seem you know like type people we want to work with. How can we make this work?
Speaker 2:And you know that goes a long ways when you have that relationship with somebody versus just giving them a number. They don't like it. You don't ever talk to them again and you know it's just not good for business. And then that also transfers over to the quality that you're trying to keep going. You know you want people at the end of the job saying I got a good job and that quality was a part of it. I got what I wanted. They did it quick or in the amount of time that they said they were going to. Right, they did the things they said they were going to my price was what we agreed on.
Speaker 1:Or you discussed a change Before you did it, or hey, you know it's I wish I would have. I was always scared to death to bring things. It was like almost discussing money was taboo in the early years for me. Like you're there to deal with money, and if I would have just been a little bit more transparent and communicated more often than not. Now, don't get me wrong, there's bad customers out there.
Speaker 2:There are. Especially, the less experienced you are, the harder some of those transactions can be. When I was, you know I'd only been doing things for a year or two. You could get to the end of the job and have a fear of asking for the check that they owe you. You've done everything, you've done everything the way it was supposed to be, but you still have that fear of bringing up the money because of the conflict that could arise. I think that takes a lot of experience as far as just learning to work with people, knowing how to see some of those cues. Of course, early on it also leads you into a few spots where you end up not getting paid, and so then you start having more detailed contracts, making sure that your signatures, more detailed contracts, making sure that your signatures and um, you know that definitely helps I think helps with you feeling more confident about getting paid.
Speaker 2:Doesn't always still ensure it, but it does help with the confidence it's, uh, it was, it was just so crazy.
Speaker 1:And, yeah, getting everything in writing, everything in writing now, how we move the commercial world like we don't do anything without you know, discussing it over email, and, yes, at times it just absolutely wears me out like can we just go to the job, do the job, or, um, in our, in our side of the coin, it's a lot of time. It's a rushed design because they had, you know, the commercial. Hey, we've got this piece of property, we started the clock and it's the interest clock and they've got that interest clock going. Well. Now the design. We need it now. Now, now, because we just bought the piece of property, we need to turn it in 90 days. We need to be a large scale in 120. We need to have the dirt guy out there in 180. This is six months of interest. We can't have the dirt guy out there in 180. This is six months of interest, we can't and it. And then by the time we get a piece of equipment on side, we're like all right, here we go, let's go do this job. They're already up your throat, where are you at, and you've got an expense clock and then when that change does happen, everybody goes ghost quiet. Hey, I just need an approval on that email anyhow, I have a little rant there.
Speaker 1:But all about that, that communication and building those relationships, man, I talk about on I think every episode of this show, um, every Wednesday at 5am coming at you bluecollarbusinesspodcastcom I have talked about relationships and really business is relationships and how you treat people, and it's not about you could probably I hope you speak on this.
Speaker 1:It's not about every small transaction, it's the whole grand scheme picture. Well, yes, she bugged you about the $300 load of topsoil this time, but she's got a swimming pool that needs dug and it's happening next summer and you know it and you guys have talked about it already two or three times. Well, you go take care of that little $300 loaded topsoil and well, the truck got stuck and in this $300 look and you're just like, oh my gosh, you know I spent a thousand dollars on a $300 loaded topsoil For a $50,000 pool that you know is coming next year, next year, and and it's not about, you know, just making a daggum home run every single time you transact and it's building that longevity relationship and during that year and a half period, oh, we're gonna have so-and-so, do our pool and you want the rest of town to be able to go. Oh yeah, actually.
Speaker 2:Uh, my uncle had them over there and did so-and-so and it was awesome and it builds that reputation, and that reputation holds more value and weight than most people would ever care to probably speak word of mouth is a powerful form of advertising in the sense that you may reach a thousand people on the radio, but if you don't reach one of them that fits the criteria that you need for your work, it's just a waste. Now, like you just said, my uncle's fixing to have a house built. He hears how great of a job you did. Now you're not even having to be it against anyone because you have that assurance from this person that you showed up every day and that you did the work and that you were quality, that your guys were clean, that things went the way they were supposed to go, and that's just a very powerful way to advertise without having to constantly bid on work that you're not seeing the profit margins.
Speaker 1:If it wasn't for word of mouth in the resi world, like everybody, probably sit here and thinks that I've had this YouTube channel for years and years but it's only for doing a quality job and taking care of Karen's bushes, and you know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Doing the small things I would have. I don't think I'd ever made it honest to God. And it's building those relationships, building that word of mouth, clientele and I know some of you guys are out there like, well, that's kind of backwards from what you tell us to do on the marketing side. You know what? Get with somebody like Blue Collar Performance Marketing and they'll ensure that you're spending your money correctly rather than just dumping your money into marketing like an excavation guy shouldn't be doing. Get the pros and let the pros do the pros thing. But I got one last question for you, sir. I ask everybody on this show every episode we end with this what's a takeaway for just the blue collar worker who is sick and tired of being stuck in the mud and that may be most literal, like you're thinking, in those irrigation muddy ditches, or it can be a guy up here, and that's what a lot of us face is that mental mindset that we can't get out of?
Speaker 2:and I think that we all have that um from time to time. There's no way you're going to work for yourself, and not in some of those slow moments or when something happens beyond your control. Go, what am I doing, right, brother? So that's pretty normal. I think that putting one foot in front of the other, putting one foot in front of the other. So in the 25, 30 years I've been doing this, the things that I can remember having major worries about are just water under the bridge. Now, well, that's reassuring, I hear you know. So when there are issues even if they arise and they seem pretty big, and keep putting one foot in front of the other, it's not going to be long before you're on the other side of it. The biggest thing is to not lose who you are.
Speaker 2:Through those issues and some of my biggest issues I've had with jobs in the past, those people became those customers, became my biggest supporters, and it was because of the effort I was willing to put in to make sure things were right. You know, people have materials that aren't what they're supposed to be. They have things that don't go together the way they're designed to. There's just always going to be something, and it's not that you may have a problem, it's how are you going to handle it. It's how are you going to handle it? You know, the integrity that you have through that is going to catapult your business. It's not going to destroy your business, okay, it's. You sit there and you worry. It's like I've ruined everything. I'm fixing to just I'm fixing to go under Yep, you know, and just keep going, because it, honestly, is not quite as bad as you thought it was and it's going to work out.
Speaker 1:Man, that's reassuring. It's just reassuring to hear and you know what Getting up watching that sun come up, watching that sun go down every every day. And you're right, time, time's a healer of all. And, uh, keep on trucking, guys. And, um, I hope today was some insight was shared, because some definite perspective and insight and reassurance from mr clay uh, I'm excited to to pick his brain some more guys, but I really truly hope you have enjoyed the insight.
Speaker 1:And, as you guys know, I often say I sit down here and I learn myself the entire time we're doing these shows and this is exactly why I started. I get to sit with gentlemen like yourself that have the experience and the knowledge and have lived through it to get where you're at, and so thank you very much for taking the time and joining us today, and so these guys can also get to hear. You know it means more than you you could ever know. I really appreciate you. That's how I appreciate being here. Um, and you got anything else for anybody else, brother, a little small shout-out or anything, no, just appreciate my guys and my crew, everybody that puts in hard day at HUD-X.
Speaker 1:I say you know, Well, where can we find you guys at on socials? We have a Facebook.
Speaker 2:Okay, I don't do a very good job of keeping it very updated, uh that we try to pick some, uh, some of our better pictures. So I mean you know when you're doing dirt work a lot of times there's not a lot of uh progress to show within camera worthy I understand, uh, you know.
Speaker 2:So, seeing a finished house, to me that shows a lot, but most people just see it as a finished house. That would probably be the only place you're really going to find us on social media, okay, though you can always email us at hudxcogmail Beautiful, At gmail Yepxgmail Beautiful.
Speaker 1:At gmail Yep At gmailcom. There you go. Yeah, I had to think about that, but well, brother, seriously. Thank you so much. I'll be following along, hudx. We will follow you guys over there on Facebook. And until next time, guys, enjoy every other episode over at bluecollarbusinesspodcastcom. You can find all our episodes there, or any, if you're listening on a streaming platform, make sure and give us a rating and a follow for Mr Clay. Until next time, guys. You guys be safe. If you've enjoyed this episode, be sure to give it a like, share it with the fellers. Check out our website to send us any questions and comments about your experience in the blue-collar business. Who do you want to hear from? Send them our way and we'll do our best to answer any questions you may have. Till next time, guys.